Response to "Dreams" by Jeremy Hare

Jeremy, I want to begin by saying thank you for a fun and light story to read. I enjoyed not having to work to hard at deciphering the deep meanings of it; the story was straightforward and fun to read.

I believe the story focuses on Sora. Sora is an interesting character from our first encounter with him as the boy that was asleep on the ground. I think his entire purpose is achieving a goal and making good on his promise to himself to not have to depend on anyone other than himself. The conflict is obvious; he hasn’t achieved this goal yet. Sora’s motive puzzles Hikari, which shows depth into both of their characters. There is not much change in Sora, we are left with a cliffhanger but hopefully he will defeat the captain but we don’t know. I think the point you are trying to get across is something alone the lines of, “stay true to your self, and fight for the opportunity to never have to depend on anyone but yourself, it may puzzle people but it keeps you happy and sane?” Something like that is the message I received when reading.

I loved the genre. You stayed true to what you told us you liked on the first day of class and transported me into a fun world with characters with exotic names battling for truth and justice and their own beliefs. We need more people in the real world like Sora.

I would like more setting. Tell me the smells and feels of the gym, describe the characters to me so I can see them better, I want more insight into Hikari as well. Having her as the narrator is interesting because she does not seem to serve a very important purpose in Sora’s life. Maybe she is not necessary? Maybe Sora should narrate? I feel as if the captain Sora is battling is almost a character out of Dragon Ball Z or something. He does not seem real to me and I would really like for him to. Maybe give him a unique characterization no one else has? I also need more imagery overall. I loved your opening but the closing ends without any changes in Sora, I think he needs to win or lose and give up (preferably win in my opinion).

Thanks again for a fun read! See you in class tomorrow.

Town Creek Creep

"Assignment: Go somewhere and eavesdrop into a conversation. Record everything you hear. Post it on your blog. Learn what makes dialogue work and not work."

And so the creepiness begins,

Town Creek Park at 5:00pm I set up my blanket and computer in the shade of some trees near some unaware hammockers in the grove of trees to my left. I emerged into their conversation…

“…actually I just want someone to feed me. I'm so glad I'm not a child,” the blonde girl laughed, “If they tried to fine me $50 for missing chapter tonight I would punch someone.”

“They wont,” her brunette curly friend assured her.

“If the speaker doesn’t have to come I don’t either, I’ll tell them I was nursing her back to health.”

“AH I'm SO SCARED! STOP!” Brown-curls’ hammock was swaying way high into the sky as a boy with a white hat pushed her. They laughed.

“What if trees roots came from clouds instead of the ground?” The blonde again, “What if all the fluffy stuff grew in the bottom of the bush?”

“We’d be just like trees!” Curls was excited by this idea.

“Oh yea! It’d be like watch out for that tree!” The blonde is giggling, “ALL THE TIME DUCK! DUCK! IT’S A TREE!”

They sat in silence in their hammocks looking up at the clouds.

“If I had an extra body I could do things with and it didn’t matter first I would do LSD then I would go skydiving,” again the blonde.

“ABSOLUTELY!”

“My friend’s dad did that LSD in college and now he’s a psychologist. My friends go to him to get Adderol.”

The boy in the white hat plopped down beside the curly girl and pulled his phone out and began playing James Taylor for everyone to enjoy.

“So yesterday on campus Kit and I broke out into Oops I did it again. LOUDLY. We weren’t just kinda singing, we went all the way!” The curly girl was giggling and it became contagious. The laughter interrupted by the train’s distant grumble.

“Yall lets go camping! But no purpling in the tents! Your body is a temple!” The blonde laughed and pushed herself in her hammock off the nearby tree with her feet.

“If you could only listen to one artist the rest of your life who would it be?” Curls is full of questions.

“It’d be a hard choice between Mozart and The Beatles.” The boy in the shorts and orange jacket answered, first time he’d spoke.

The train’s horn has now passed, they sit in silence and swag in their hammocks, happily unaware of the English student destroying all their rights of privacy.

Response to Richard Bausch "1-900"

Once again, a trend I am beginning to find defines well written literature, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into when I began Richard Bausch’s short story “1-900” this week. The title gives nothing away as to what the story is about, and that is one of the main lessons I seem have being drilled in my brain this semester. My poetry teacher says, “Let the time capture the imagination not define what needs to be imagined.” In my opinion, Bausch succeeds in doing so.

So, what was the story about? Phone sex. Surprise! The characters again, like the past two weeks, describe themselves in their conversation. I am beginning to see another theme this semester that is telling me to allow my characters to define themselves without my help. That’s what makes a character real. That is what happens the whole time John is talking to Sharon.

We learn from the awkward pauses, their responses to the different verbal stimuli the other offers, and even in the end from John’s somewhat forceful request and Sharon’s hesitation and denial exactly what type of people they are. This is powerful, but can also be problematic. I think it works in this situation because of the genre the story is, but if this had been a longer work the way the characters were developed would have almost seemed forced. Dialogue is important and a powerful definer for the characters in this piece because of what they were doing, but if Harry Potter was only written in dialogue the first time Hermonie said, “lumos!” I would have been stupefied.

I think the subject and syntax coincided exceedingly well, further proving that Bausch is a very talented author. Dialogue is not an area of writing in which I boast, but reading stories such as this offer me encouragement and motivation to continue to grow and learn. A link to his own personal blog can be found here: Richard Bausch's Blog

Mountain Blood

"Assignment: Write a short story. No genre fiction."

I’ve decided that I will always live in the mountains. I finish clearing the tables in Ballroom C, now that the last guest is gone, and turn off the lights. I take off my name tag and check my pocket; its still there so I head out the back door of the kitchen and walk into the brisk, clear mountain air. For the first few months I hated the walk back to my cabin when my shift ended; it’s always pitch black on the mountain by this hour and the stars and moon seem to add more chill than warmth to the air. Now, the ten-minute walk back home is what I look forward to every day. The minutes of solitude amongst the trees and stars have become something sacred.

I crunch my way down the trail and my mind again grinds out the details of the one story I’ll never be able to erase: Julia, being carried out by the police, blood violently spilling from a gash across her forehead. She was screaming and the mascara mixed with the blood had dyed her blonde hair brown. She was beautiful as ever in that royal blue cocktail dress, but the screams that accompanied the memory of her beauty were now inseparable. We didn’t get on the bus for her senior Zeta Phi formal because she was the last intended victim. Well, the second to last. Somehow she had managed to fight him off. Her perfect past of white debutante balls and neon sorority socials was now stained by yellow police tape and the cold, red blood of four complete strangers. The families of the others hated her, but they hate me more.

“No. No, no, no. NO. Not Julia, not him, not Zeta Phi,” I remind myself as I step off the trail. Its silent as I turn into the clearing by the cabins clearly marked “STAFF.” I make my way down to the cabin painted with a big white “2” and pause by the glowing embers of the dying fire. I decide better safe than burnt alive and unzip my fly to help the embers accomplish the end of their orange lives.

“Dude, really? What would you do if the boss lady walked around the corner?” I turned my neck as the embers continued to hiss and laughed as my roommate from the mountain, Beau, shook his head and unlocked the door to our cabin.

“I’ll be inside in a few,” I said, “I jacked us some left-over whiskey from the 6 o’clock wedding.” Beau made a dramatic fist pump and closed the door behind him.

“It’s Friday night. Don’t give another night over to it. Have some fun Damnit.” I steeled myself mentally, took one last look at the stars, made sure the fire was sufficiently drowned and headed inside. I patted my pocket before I stepped in, it was still there.

“Bro, how much whiskey you got? Wanna invite the girls from cabin 4 to throw down? They’re only workin’ one more week before they’re gone and fresh meat comes in.” Beau came out of our bedroom in his boxers, mouth foaming with toothpaste and his green toothbrush. I’m not a modest person and neither is Beau so walking around in our boxers is normal life. It feels like I’m in college again. “College is where I met Julia…” I start to drift, my fingers reaching again into my pocket, but Beau’s twangy voice draws me back, “Open a window man I gotta cool off after that run.” He plops down on the one couch of our kitchen/living/dining/party room, cussing under his breath as he pulls out an old beer bottle that was wedged between the cushions.

I open the small kitchen window then slump down on the couch beside him, pulling out the handle of Jack Daniels Honey from my backpack on the floor,

“Let me get four shots deep and I’ll personally extend them an invitation myself.” Beau’s eyes widen as I take a long pull of the Whiskey and slam it down with a satisfied smirk, “Maybe I really am ready.”

“I’ve never seen you this, erm… excited man,” Beau reached across the table and grabbed the bottle, “you sure you’re ok?” He took an equally long swig.

“I’m tired of waiting to have fun man,” I take another long pull, “I can’t let that night stop me for one more second. Tonight is the night Chad Grune is reborn.” I take a twenty-second pull and not ten minutes later we’ve got the whiskey below the label.

“Shit bro, I’ve been waiting for this side of you to show up. Let me put on some clothes and let’s go invite the lucky college ladies of cabin 4 to join in.” Beau stumbled to the bedroom doorway and grabbed the first pair of jeans he saw.

“Damn man slow down. You don’t wanna black out do you?” Beau said as he zipped up his jeans. He sniffed the white shirt in his hand, deemed it to be clean, and slipped into it.

“Here get out of uniform and lets go,” he threw me another pair or jeans and sniffed shirt from the pile on the ground. We decided after a week that sharing all our clothes would be the easiest. I stepped out of my shoes and tripped as I pulled my left leg out of my black suit pants. Steadying myself on the couch I peel my right leg out of the pants and then I hear it hit the floor. A small clank but because of it’s shape, the noise spirals until it’s momentum is stilled. Shit.

“Dude…is that the—“ Beau started but before he could name it I hurriedly picked it up and stuffed it into the waistband of my briefs.

“Don’t worry about it.” I say and unbutton my work shirt. It’s cold now, the window’s been open to long and I can feel the mountain air creeping into my skin. I grab the pair of jeans beside me and step into them, left leg is a success but as I lift my right leg I feel the cold metal circle slipping out of my waistband. The room is spinning now. It’s almost slow motion as it falls out of my protection and again hits the cold floor, this time rolling instead of lying where it fell. Trapped in the net of my jeans and whiskey I fall to the floor as I lunge to grab it, my chin smacks the granite tabletop hard and I faintly hear Beau screaming at me as I lay down. Down, down, down, around, and spinning. It’s so dark but I’m warmer here so I don’t fight it.

“You’re Mr. Grune?”

“Yes sir, why—“

“I’m going to need you to come with me. Whatever you do son, do NOT look into that house. Do you hear me?”

“Officer, I’m confused. I’m just here to pick up my girlfriend Julia, she lives here. Where is she? Why are there so many cops lights? Is she ok? Is everything—“ I stopped talking as I heard her voice. I turned from the officer and back towards her house. The officer barked and grabbed my shoulders, pulling my face back away from her house. But not before I saw her. She looked absolutely beautiful. A royal blue dress, the red and blue lights that hit it extenuated her perfectly sculpted body and her angelic face. What my brain refused to believe was the red that poured from her forehead. Blood. Blood. Everywhere. Her hair was stained. Her dress was wet. Her eyes were wet. Tears?

“Son, I’m going to have to ask you to get into the car. Now.” I was shoved into a cop car and carted downtown. I am jello. I am not real.

A white room with a mirror, table, and two chairs.

Alone.

What.

The.

Hell.

They offered me bagels. They were stale. The coffee tasted like dirt. They are dirt. I bite nervous craters into my cheeks until the iron taste of blood fills my mouth. Blood. She was covered. Julia…

“He is what is known as a serial-murderer. She was his intended victim, you should be thankful she’s alive.” I sat in silence as the badges and moustaches told me how lucky she was to be living and how lucky I was compared to the other boyfriends. They told me the serial-murder’s niche was couples. He couldn’t stand happiness so he stole it from others. He had killed two other college girls and both their boyfriends. If she had been killed I would’ve been next. Do I understand how lucky I am? I say no. They tell me they are going to hold me for my own protection because he may have an accomplice. Its 4 a.m.

I’m wide-awake.

Its 7 a.m.

The badge with the deep voice comes in and sits beside me, offering me more dirt and staleness. I say no. He begins,

“She may not recover. He did not murder her but he did damage her. She was knocked out with a blunt weapon, the blow dented her skull and she’s in a coma. Do you understand?”

I nod. Jello again. Not human. Not real.

Three weeks pass and she gets worse. None of my friends look at me the same. My family has decided to live in town close to me until I graduate in May. Her parents cry. My parents cry. Then I decide to do it anyways.

I go to the hospital in a suit, my dad drives. Mom is sniffling in the front seat beside him and their hands are intertwined. We walk into her room and I get on one knee. She doesn’t answer but I slip the ring on her finger anyways. “Forever,” I whisper.

“CHAD WAKE UP.” Beau’s voice brought me back to reality. I was sprawled on the floor, pants around my feet, head throbbing but not bleeding. Then I remembered, “Where is it. Where is the ring?” Beau’s eyes turned to the one air vent on the floor of out cabin. They told us the first day that anything that goes down it goes into the heart of the mountain. Absolutely no way to get it back.

“Chad, I’m sorry. You fell so hard and I went to help you before I realized what you were lunging after. I thought you were just drunk… I’m sorry brother, its gone.” His eyes were filled with concern and I was reminded of the moustache’s pity, my mother’s tears, and Julia’s father’s silence.

“So, um, I guess you don’t feel to much like partyin’ any more?” Beau said. The concern in his voice couldn’t mask the hope of still having fun.

“You go on man. I just need to be alone.” I groaned as I stood up, pulled my pants on, and walked to the door still not wearing a shirt.

“Where are you going bro? Chad?”

I didn’t respond and leave the door open as I again entered the night. I stood at the fire pit, now stagnant with ash and urine, and looked into the depths above. My eyes stung. I blame the smell. My fingers fumble blindly in the emptiness that is now my pocket. I hear sticks crunching and the chattering of teeth coming in my direction.

“Chad, I’m not gunna get drunk tonight without you.” I turn and Beau is behind me, Jack in hand. “Pull,” he says, “then we talk. You gotta move on bro. Aint that the whole reason you’re livin up here in the first place? Here, put a shirt on or you’ll catch a cold.” I grab the shirt he throws at me and take a pull of Jack to appease both Beau and my throbbing head. I’m thankful for him, he’s a better friend than I give him credit for being, so I begin,

“It was the last part of her I had Beau. I know it was just a ring, but its all I had left. It meant our future. That night, at the formal, we would’ve danced to Ella Fitzgerald and at the last note I was going to dip her down low, kiss her, then get on one knee.” My voice began to quiver, “I was sweating when I went to pick her up, I was so excited and nervous. The cops thought it was because I felt guilty.” My voice cracked but I continued, “Guilty? Me? How could they ever imagine for one second I could hurt her? My beautiful Julia. She’s dead Beau. Damnit…” Tears were flowing freely now, “She. Is. Dead. She’s gone and I’ve accepted that but I just can’t get over the core question. What makes a man so screwed up that he could ever justify actions like that? Is it a part of all of us? Could that have been me?” I slow to take another pull of Jack and restructure my breathing before I begin again, this time in a whisper, “I’ve asked myself these questions every day for two years, they haunt me. Not because my answer is yes, but because it’s no. I can’t think of any situation that could make me so broken that I turn to murdering. He didn’t just kill people he murdered joy!”

We sat in silence, the stars singing, my heart skipping, the whiskey slithering.

“It’s gone man,” Beau’s voice again interrupts, “I can’t get your ring outta that pipe in the mountain. I can’t tell you why you lived and she died, but I know you are alive. Look at me Chad,” I look up and finally see eyes that care without pity, “this world’s a crazy place. That’s just it. It don’t get any easier or harder. You can spend the rest of your life askin yourself why he did it and if you’re evil but that’s not much of a life. He was a broken lunatic and so am I. So are you. So was Julia.” His voice faded off after saying her name and I looked again into his eyes. No pity still, just hope.

We finished the bottle of Jack in silence and stumbled back to the cabin together after a few hours of chatter and thought. I’m thankful for Beau and I’m sure he knows it. I’ve seen the depths of depravity but I’ve also seen into the secret veil of love. It doesn’t make sense but I know I’ve got to keep on going in this world and do my best to make it a better place because that’s what Julia would want. There is beauty even amidst the brokenness and after tonight I’ve decided to stop questioning the dark and start pursuing the light.

“Beau?”

“Yea?”

“Thank you.”

I hear him shuffle around in his bed and breathe a sigh of contentment. The stars singing stopped a while ago and as I turn my covers into a cocoon I see the whispers of morning paint the sky. Light will always triumph darkness.

Response to “Emergency” by Dennis Johnson

Wow. A beautiful example of not trying to hard but having language that portrays so much. From the very beginning it is obvious the characters are not in their right state of mind but it’s not just another “drug trip” or “drunk night” kind of story. Johnson uses the pills that, “taste like urine” to define his characters in a way that giving detailed descriptions would fail.

The fact that they work in a hospital, assumedly steal drugs, and also assumedly the entire staff of the hospital knows tells so much of exactly who the two are. They are either respected or ignored, but the importance lies in the fact that they are there in spite of the feelings others have about them. Johnson also avoids the stereotypical “General Hospital” or “Grey’s Anatomy” feeling by allowing the hospital to be a setting and nothing more. It is a job. There are benefits (such as the stolen drugs) and pitfalls (such as having to sleep on a gurney in the nurses station).

When the two protagonists leave after taking the knife out of the married man’s cheating eye they go on quite a journey. Where they both feel called to go tells us so much about them. Johnson doesn’t have to say one is called to religion, possibly alluding to a lifetime in the church while the other craves a carnival possibly alluding to a ‘Peter Pan never wanna grow up’ mentality. We get this information but he shows us without telling us. The mark of true art and a true author.

The rabbits and the hitchhiker also elaborate on the characters. The fact they would go back for the road kill and gut it on the side of the road shows they are either insane and drugged, resourceful and hunters, or a strange combination of the two. The fact the babies are squished shows good intentions murdered by laziness and apathy. The hitchhiker shows juxtaposes a similar question; are they just to drugged up to realize the dangers of driving a hitchhiker or are they kind souls who truly want to help humanity? As Georgie says at the end, his job is saving lives.

Johnson is a master of developing characters through setting, a skill which I hope emulate.

Read his story here:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1991/09/16/1991_09_16_031_TNY_CARDS_000358114

Post Card Assignment

"Assignment: Handwrite a story onto a postcard and mail it to a friend. Don't waste space explaining it, just begin your story."


She wore black except the white heels and pearl earrings. Coughing would show weakness. She swigs her water. The subway-car slows to a stop, “STATION A-4” and Blythe glides out into the underground bustle. It’s routine now to be ignored. A laughing blonde on her pink iPhone bumps Blythe and gives a startled yelp. Blythe pierces the Barbie with a glare and starts up the stairs to the office. A clock reads 7:57. Late. Again. She rounds the corner and sees the sign, “Cound Industries- over 100 years of family service.” Pushing in the wooden door and ignoring security she marches to the IV floor. Marketing. No one says hello or acknowledges her presence. She is phantom. Everyone knows its terminal and that she’s the last of the Cound family line. “Three months, max. It’s a very aggressive cancer.” The doctor told her that at Christmas and it’s now Valentine’s Day. She shut herself in her office. Blythe sighed for the first time. She took out her kerchief and coughed. Blood spots. The red blood was not the only red she planned to see this Valentine’s Day. Today, Blythe Cound decided to take her life and make it immortal. Steeling herself with a vodka shot she tucked the bloody rag back into her coat which she then removed to reveal a flowing white dress. “Maybe it will be Owen, he has ideas on how to fix this place. No more charity to start with.” The whispers of her “friends and coworkers” filled her mind as she observed herself in the mirror. Ninety pounds, hollow cheeks, and the wedding dress of her grandma baggy and yellowed. She coughed up blood again, this time on her hand. The urgency hit her. Re-dressing in her long coat she left the office for the last time. Ever. Twenty minutes later she entered the soup kitchen. She sat in the back observing the scene. She chose the young boy, maybe in his thirties. She approached him and grabbed his hand. “Come with me son.” Her voice was harsh now. He obeyed. They went left three blocks to the Courthouse. They entered the probate judges office, signed the papers, and “Cound Inc” officially had a new successor. She died two weeks later. The boy she married was named Cyril. He abused his power and eventually was deemed by those in black ties to be, “mentally insufficient for such a stress-inducing position.” But, Blythe’s plan worked. The news ate the story up. You should’ve seen the headlines. They say “Cound Inc” lasted only two more years before declaring bankruptcy. Some blame Blythe. Some blame Cyril. None blame the whispers.

French Facade

"Write a short short (500 words maximum) in which the TV plays a role. Let the words/images on the screen interact with or reflect on the situation in the story. Your characters can be watching TV or it can be background noise."

Les Miserables has always brought me more joy than James Bond or Mean Girls. I grabbed it instinctually the night when Megan called and told me to pack a bag because ‘the deed had been done.’

We’ve been at the cabin for over two weeks now and this is the only movie we have. It’s VHS and skips a little, but it’s better than the silence or static that normally floods the air. The end of Act 1 flashes across the screen with the victorious rendition of ‘One Day More.’ I stand up and my shake my left arm, coaxing blood to return into my numbed fingers that for the past hour have been trapped as a pillow/embrace under Megan.

“I’m gunna light up a smoke before we start Act II, you wanna join?” I pull the pack out of my pocket and shake the empty lighter to life. It sparks and I open the door to the porch. We both sit on the wooden bench and pass the Marbolo back and forth, cold fingertips bumping and bare feet dancing on the cool wood. The lyrics to ‘A Heart Full of Love” were floating in the air back inside, “Cosette I don't know what to say. Then make no sound. I am lost! I am found! A heart full of love!”

“We both know I’ll never be able to go back home, not after what I did,” her voice pulled me away from the music, “Where do we go from here John?”

I can’t bring myself to look up into her broken eyes so I take an excessively long drag on the cigarette, burnt paper crackling but not long enough to give me escape. I flick the burning butt onto the pavement and begin,

“Megan, I don’t know what to say anymore. If I don’t get back into town soon it will look damn suspicious. It’s been two whole weeks! My sister says that Meadowbrook is still in shock, the police are completely dumbfounded by your murder. You planned it all perfectly but what happens when they don’t find your body? What happens when the police discover the murder didn’t really happen!” I stopped talking. This is the first time I’ve directly said the M word to her.

The TV inside had progressed and in our wintry silence we could hear Javert singing of the beauty of the stars. I look over at her handsome freckled face; she’s looking up at the heavens in silence. She looked older than eternity. We sat still as two more songs played on the screen back inside. I look over again at Megan and realize she’s staring at me. She dug her cold fingers into mine and we sat together, unsure of what the future will bring. The closing chords of the finale offer us hope in their promise, “For the wretched of the earth. There is a flame that never dies. Even the darkest nights will end and the sun will rise.”

Response to "Television" by Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis artfully uses words to convey an experience that fully defines her character as well as one that is uniquely of this day and age. We are television addicts.

The syntax is one of the most powerful players in Davis’ piece. Syntax is a weapon that many authors do not take fully advantage of, however “Television” is an exception. When thinking about the actual act of watching television, one thinks of not a long continual process, but rather hooks and shocks crammed into fifteen-minute time slots with seven-minute commercial breaks in-between. The syntax of this piece is tactfully similar. The staccato structure secures the attention of the reader while the numbers break your attention between the three different sections.

One of the hardest, and I personally believe most successful, ways to define a character is to let them define themselves. We learn so much about the narrator throughout the story.

Section 1 tells us she is a she. She has a mother. The women in her family are not in control. Her husband may or may not be unsatisfied with their relationship. Maybe he is having an affair. They are a judgmental family but also seek to conform to the standards of society because of the shine of the rich and famous.

Section 2 tells us she is unsatisfied with her self-decided mundane existence. She is either ADHD or a true renaissance woman interested in everything from the weather to “Swamp Critturs” (210). She is also a skeptic and doubts that scientists, more specifically meteorologists, have any answers.

Section 3 tells us at times she believes her life to be riveting and turns to the TV to escape. She sees how much happens to others in a mere hour and a half and realizes she doesn’t have it that bad.

We learned all of that without being told.

Davis is an exemplary model for how to shape a character without forcing personality traits or making her reader dig. Wonderful read. If you’re interested, a link to the work can be found here:

"Television"

War Damn Lydia and goodnight to all.

Forewarning for Spring 2012

Over this next semester this blog will be solely dedicated to my Fiction Writing I class. Thanks for understanding everyone, after this semester the blog will be back to normal.